Events
Events
Events
MY FS FLIGHTS
Flight Score
Departure
Ease the yoke smoothly to hold a steady one g through the ground roll instead of letting it sag to 0.4 g.
What happened: During the ground roll the g force averaged 0.4 g, well below the smooth steady load expected while tracking the runway.
Watch for: Watch the g meter and hold it steady near one g through the roll.
See Departure Roll
Arrival
Keep the back pressure coming once the flare is established, holding the nose up through to touchdown instead of easing it.
What happened: The flare arrested the sink but 920 fpm of it came back before touchdown, and in flights like this one that returning sink usually carries through to a firm or hard touchdown at 488 fpm.
Watch for: Vertical speed indicator: the sink held near zero all the way through touchdown, not allowed to build back up.
There are several things that can go wrong during the flare, carrying too much speed over the threshold, starting the flare at the wrong height and inconsistent flight control inputs, all contribute to a poor flare resulting in a hard touchdown or a float down the runway.
Read more in Flare TimingStart to finish · 14 stages, 12 in the score
Events
Events
Events
Taxi out
The roll
A clean takeoff
Rotated at 69 kt against the 69 kt rotate speed, then held 11.7° from 35 ft, within 4.2° top to bottom.
Rotated on speed at a steady rate, and the climb attitude held. This is the takeoff to repeat: the same speed check, the same pull, the same attitude.
Liftoff and climb
Plan view the roll down the 1,146 m runway.
Rolled from 116 m in, drifted left of the centreline, 2.3 m at the widest, and lifted off 1.5 m left, in 6 kn of crosswind from the right. Airborne 35 % of the way down the runway, before the 75 % line.
The roll from above, with your left at the top. The line is where the wheels went, and "widest" is the furthest you drifted off the centreline. Lifting off before the amber 75 % line gets full marks for the roll length. The arrow beside the runway is the crosswind, pointing the way the air was moving, so it pushed the aircraft that way.
Side view from the start of the roll to the end of Climb 3 at 746 ft.
Reached 35 ft with 556 m of runway left; gear up at 163 ft, inside the 400 ft that gets full marks; then climbing at 1,170 fpm on average to 746 ft.
The takeoff from the side: the height above the runway against the distance along it. The numbers along the runway are the speeds reached at each point. Lifting off in the amber last quarter of the runway costs marks for the roll length. The gear-up ring is coloured by its mark. The shaded stretch is Climb 3, scored on its average speed against the target.
Speed and pitch from brake release to the end of the climb, against time.
Two traces from brake release: the airspeed on top, and below it the pitch, which is how far the nose is above the horizon. The figure at liftoff is the pitch then. The grey dashed line across the pitch is the attitude held from 35 ft to the end: a nose held steady is a climb speed that holds, and the airspeed trace sits directly above it to compare. The shaded stretch is Climb 3, the part of the climb scored on holding the climb speed.
One stabilised approach gate: 3 checks where the approach path is 300 ft above the runway. The 1,000 ft gate was not assessed, because the approach did not join final that far out. These checks are the approach's score.
Sideslipping at the lower gate - wing down, opposite rudder. That is a technique for losing height without gaining speed, so the sink rate, the glideslope and wings level are not asked there: they are what the slip is for. The other checks are marked as usual.
Still turning onto final at the lower gate, so the centreline and wings level are not asked there - the aeroplane was not lined up yet, and was banked because it was turning. The other checks are marked as usual.
When the approach was stable
Never every check met at once: left of the centreline all the way, high until 0.3 nm, fast from 0.8 nm to the threshold.
Each line is one of the gate checks, run along the whole final rather than only at the gates: green where it would have passed, amber where it would not. The glideslope, centreline and speed lines use the bands in the charts beside this card. The sink rate is allowed what the glideslope needs at your ground speed plus 600 fpm, the wings 10° of bank, and the gear and flap are read from when you moved the levers. The bottom line is green where every check held at once, ignoring blips shorter than 0.2 nm, and the sentence above it says from where it held to the threshold. A ring is a stabilisation gate, where the checks in the table were taken.
The final from 4 nm, with the stabilisation gates on it.
Profile height against the 3° glideslope, with its 2° band in green.
High from 1.5 nm, where the final began, to 0.3 nm (up to 420 ft over), then back on it to the threshold.
Your height above the runway against the distance still to go. The glideslope is the steady descent path to the aiming point, 305 m past the threshold: 3° here, which is about 320 ft for every nautical mile out, crossing the threshold at about 50 ft. The row under the distances is the height it puts you at. Inside the green band your path is drawn green; outside it, amber. A ring is a stabilisation gate: green when every check there passed, amber with the failed checks named beside it.
Plan distance off the extended centreline, your left at the top, with the 1° band. Sideways distances are drawn 3× larger than distances along the final.
Joined 731 m left of the centreline at 1.5 nm.
Looking down from above, flying left to right towards the runway: up the page is left of the centreline, down is right. Sideways distances are stretched so that small drifts show, so a line that looks wild here may be only a few tens of feet. The labels are how far off you were at each distance, amber when outside the band.
Speed against the approach speed. The green band runs from 5 kt slow to 33 kt fast at the 1,000 ft gate, closing to 20 at 500 ft and 10 at the threshold.
Inside the speed band from 1.5 nm, where the final began, to 0.8 nm, then fast to the threshold (up to +25 kt).
Your indicated airspeed down the final, against the approach speed for this aircraft at its landing weight. The band allows 5 kt slow and more on the fast side further out, closing as you get lower, because the speed is expected to come off on the way down. The figures are knots above (+) or below (−) the approach speed.
Over the threshold
The flare wandered off the target profile
The flare arrested the sink and then let it come back - 920 fpm of it - so the aircraft dropped the last few feet. Touchdown was 182 m past the threshold. Keep the back pressure coming once the flare is established.
Touchdown
Rollout
Taxi in
Side view — the last 1,524 m of the approach.
Began the flare at 28 ft, 123 m before the threshold; crossed the threshold at 12 ft, 38 ft below the 50 ft target; ballooned 6 ft from 0 ft. Touched down 182 m in, 123 m short of the ideal 305 m.
The last stretch of the approach and the touchdown, from the side. The height is stretched so that the last few feet show: 80 ft top to bottom, against 1,524 m across. The dashed line is the ideal, 50 ft over the threshold and down 305 m in. The flare ring is where you began raising the nose, and "descent slowed" is where the sink came off; the figures beside them are the sink rate, pitch and speed at that point.
Sink and pitch — through the flare, lined up with the side view.
From the flare the descent stopped and turned into a climb of 450 fpm before coming down at 490 fpm to touch. The nose went down 3.2° on the way down. Into the flare at 76 kt, 10 kt over the 66 kt approach speed, and 57 kt at touchdown.
Lined up with the side view above, so a point on one sits under the same point of the other. On top, how fast you were coming down: 0 is level, and −600 is 600 ft a minute down. Below, the pitch. In a flare the nose comes up and the descent slows towards 0. The figure at the touchdown line is your touchdown rate.
Plan view — the first 1,524 m of the 1,675 m runway, to the same scale as the side view.
Touched down 18 m left of the centreline, and steered back to 1.2 m left by the end of the rollout. 3 kt across from the right, which takes about 3° of crab to hold the centreline at 57 kt. Touched down with 2° of it still on, 7.6° of bank.
Wind 171° at 6 kt · 4 kt head · 3 kt across
The runway from above, with your left at the top. Touching down inside the green bracket scores full marks for the distance. The shaded part is the rollout, up to where it ended. The arrow beside the runway is the crosswind, pointing the way the air was moving, so it pushed the aircraft that way. The wind is the one recorded at the landing, split along the runway (headwind or tailwind) and across it. To hold the centreline in a crosswind the nose points a little into wind - the crab - and is straightened with rudder just before the wheels touch, often with the into-wind wing lowered to stop the drift. The sentence gives the nose against the direction you were actually moving as the wheels touched, and the steepest bank as they touched, the figure the touchdown's Bank tile marks. The rest of it is shown for reading, not marked.
The 182 m touchdown sits inside the full-score zone. The 1.47 G arrival bounced 2 times.
The rest of the report
The Piper PA-24 Comanche departed from runway 08 at LSGK Saanen Airfield. Take-off was achieved after a distance of 417 m, which was 36 % of the runway, and liftoff occurred at 70 kt. Local weather at departure was 10 °C with wind 7 kt from 157°, giving a cross-wind component of 6 kt and a head-wind component of 1 kt.
The aircraft climbed to 1 000 ft agl in 34 seconds, averaging 1 271 fpm and reaching 86 kt at the top of the initial climb. This was followed by a series of three short climbs, descents and level legs between 3 700 ft asl and 5 300 ft asl, covering 8 nm over about 4 minutes, from overhead Saanen to a point 1 mile south-west of Zweisimmen.
During the final approach to runway 14 at LSTS Sankt Stephan Airfield, the descent was from 842 ft agl to -52 ft agl in 60 seconds. Stabilisation checks at 500 ft above the runway were met: gear down, landing flap, on speed. The landing gear was lowered at 1 312 ft agl with a speed of 142 kt, and the final flap position 9 was set at 1 207 ft agl with a speed of 111 kt.
The aircraft landed on runway 14, whose length is 1 675 m. The threshold height was good and the threshold speed was 69 kt, described as good. The flare was fair; the aircraft dropped onto the runway at the end of the flare. Touchdown occurred 181 m from the threshold at a speed of 57 kt, also described as good, with a hard touchdown rate of minus 488 fpm. Two bounces followed touchdown. The touchdown point was significantly misaligned, being 18.2 m off the centreline, but the runway rollout alignment was perfect. Total landing distance was 774 m, 46 % of the runway.
Local weather at landing was 10 °C with wind 7 kt from 170°, giving a cross-wind component of 4 kt and a head-wind component of 6 kt.
After landing, the aircraft taxied to parking in less than one minute, covering less than 1 nm. The entire flight covered 11 nm, lasted 7 minutes and used 4 kg of fuel.
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